never hear from me; how can that be ? I receive yours, and you generally mention having got one of mine, though long after the time you should. I never miss above one post, and that but very seldom. I am longer receiving yours, though you have never missed ; but then I frequently receive two at once. I am delighted with Goldsworthy's mystery about King Theodore2! If you will promise me not to tell him, I will tell you a secret, which is, that if that person is not King Theodore, I assure you it is not Sir Eobert "Walpole. . . .8
I have nothing to tell you but that Lord Effingham Howard* is dead, and Lord Litchfield5 at the point of death ; he was struck with a palsy last Thursday. Adieu!
109. To HOKACE MANN.
Arlington Street, Feb. 24, 1743.
I WRITE to you in the greatest hurry in the world, but write I will. Besides, I must wish you joy: you are warriors; nay, conquerors; two things quite novel in this war, for hitherto it has been armies without fighting, and deaths without killing. We talk of this battle as of a comet; ' Have you heard of the battle1 ?' it is so strange
2 Theodore, Baron de Neuhoff, a German adventurer, who in return for assistance rendered to the rebellious Corsicans was (in 1736) proclaimed King by them. He held his ground against the Genoese for some time, and was finally expelled by the French. He fled to Amsterdam, where he was imprisoned for debt. He escaped thence, and took refuge in England, where he was again imprisoned. He obtained his release on registering his ' kingdom' for the benefit of his creditors, and died shortly afterwards in London (Dec. 11, 1756). His grave in the churchyard of St. Anne's, Soho, is indicated
by an epitaph written by Horace Walpole. The latter endeavoured to raise a subscription for him by means of an essay in the World (No. Vin, Works, vol. i. p. 151). The vicissitudes of his career inspired. a paragraph in Horace Walpole's Strange Occwrences (Works, vol. Lv. p. 365).
3 Passage omitted.
* Francis Howard (1683-1743), eighth Baron Howard of Effingham and first Earl of Effingham; Deputy Earl Marshal, 1731; Brigadier-General, 1739. He died on Feb. 12.
0 He died on Feb. 15.
LETTER 109.—x On the night of